Mark J Cox blog/20040401141549.html

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01 Apr 2004: Embargoed Diary

During my short part of the world tour I got asked why I didn't keep my blog up to date with interesting stuff about what I do. The problem working on security vulnerabilities is many of them are embargoed; I spent many hours working on the recent OpenSSL issues, many days working on the Forrester Study, and all these things I couldn't talk about. Then when the embargo gets lifted I've moved onto something new and it doesn't seem worth dredging up the past.

So in the last month: I've learnt that sending the press a written statement usually gets you a better and more accurate quote than talking to them. It's probably the British accent that throws them. I've learnt that no matter how hard you try you can't find everyone who uses OpenSSL in their product to tell them in advance about security issues, and the ones you miss end up being annoyed. I've learnt that the latest attempt to cure my migraines has a side effect in that I don't get nervous before giving presentations (it felt like I was watching myself from above). I've learnt that April fools jokes on the web are not funny (well apart from the "Klingon Eye for the Human Guy" one and our Apache PDA one from a few years ago).

Just a month before the end of life of Red Hat Linux 9 I finally got around to upgrading some old Red Hat 7.1 machines to run Advanced Server 2.1AS; only one reboot and about 20 minutes of my time required. I was so pleased with myself I spent an hour sending in one of my patches for ZoneMinder which is used to record and upload cctv stuff that goes on outside my house.

Created: 01 Apr 2004
Tagged as: microsoft, openssl, red hat, security

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Hi! I'm Mark Cox. This blog gives my thoughts and opinions on my security work, open source, fedora, home automation, and other topics.

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